Home › Forums › MGTOW Central › In Defence of Liberal Arts Degrees
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Beer 3 years, 6 months ago.
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Only fools go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for a degree in the gender dynamics of bronze age underwater basket weaving. Only idiots do so knowing it qualifies them for nothing more than barrista work at starbucks. Only assholes think they should get equal compensation as STEM graduates regardless.
Pretty much everyone at those occupy rallies for one. All the people screaming and bawling for “college debt relief” for another, and they are selling their votes cheap to the democrats to get it.
Lol…exactly. Having a degree isn’t what makes you money…its the market dynamics that make you money. If the economy needs RN’s…wages will go up. If the economy needs petro engineers…wages will go up. If the market has a glut of people with a bachelors in a liberal arts fields and no work that really requires such degrees, wages for those jobs aren’t going to go up, if the candidates can even find jobs in their field.
We’re not knocking those fields. We’re only knocking the people who go into those fields expecting to earn a high six figure salary when they graduate. And who then whine and complain when they can only get jobs flipping burgers.
And yes, there are actually useful liberal arts degrees, like studying law, for example. But there are a hell of a lot more useless liberal arts degrees, and those tend to be the ones that attract the whiners.
Right. The average STEM grad working in their field will have a higher life time earnings than the average liberal arts grad working in their field. Nobody ever said you have to go STEM to make money…its just when someone says I want to make money what should I study, that is why a STEM degree is the most common answer.
Plus STEM degrees have the advantage of generally being capable of getting you an above average paying job at a bachelor degree level. In order for a lot of liberal arts degrees to achieve this, you have to go on for a masters or higher, and the cost of college only seems to get higher the higher up the degree chain you climb. Financially that extra 2-4 years of not working and taking loans may very well never be worth it as compared to an extra 2-4 years of working and investing, although if it is a field you really want to get into this probably won’t be your primary concern.
My problem with you is that you’re not putting a real argument. You’re just inventing an extreme position and then using that as the basis of your attack.
He’s not creating an extreme position though. Most bachelors in liberal arts are worthless. Sure they aren’t as far out as bronze age underwater basket weaving…but there really isn’t much difference between that and a degree in theater, gender studies, African American studies, communications, or a whole bunch of other degrees people actually get. He could remove “bronze age underwater basket weaving” and insert a list of dozens of other degrees, but whats the point, its not too hard to figure out what he’s talking about, and its definitely not an extreme position, its reality.
Let’s just say every time I’ve read an article or seen a news clip that involved someone bitching about student loans ruining their lives, their choice of major has never surprised me, and they tend to not be STEM grads.
How many people actually pass STEM fields with no passion for the subject besides the mercenary? Based on my experiences I would guess hardly any, because it’s intense and hard as s~~~.
This conversation shouldn’t really be STEM vs Liberal Arts it should be Liberal Arts vs Skipping college altogether. Because if you have the passion for STEM it’s a given that’s what you’ll study. If you don’t you’ll either not study it, or fail flat on your ass when they give you three inch thick text books to read and you find your simple motivation to make moolah doesn’t quite cut it.
Unless you’re genetically gifted to the point where you don’t need lil things like passion for a subject to make it in that field.
So this is all a moot point.
No, the sentence as you typed it originally made no grammatical sense.
I assure you it does. You shouldn’t need me to diagram that sentence for you. Go back and re-read it until you understand.
And nobody in the real world argues for this either.
Only if you consider occupy protests separate from the real world. While that’s poetically valid, it’s not technically true (unfortunately). For that matter, the whole idea of equal reward for unequal effort is one of the basic concepts of socialism (which goes a long way to explain why socialism never functions in the real world).
My problem with you is that you’re not putting a real argument. You’re just inventing an extreme position and then using that as the basis of your attack.
Telling people they should concentrate on being able to pay their own way first and only then engage in “life enhancing” studies once they have that basic responsibility covered is an “extreme position”?
What, exactly, is so “extreme” about thinking people should earn their own keep first?
Yes, I know this. Please don’t assume that just because I have a slightly different opinion to yours, that must mean I’m stupid or ignorant or less knowledgeable than you are.
I see your grasp of the quoting system here is as weak as your grasp of basic English sentence structure.
That was in reply to @phoenix when he asked what defines liberal arts versus sciences, not you.
That’s the way c~~~s argue
Go f~~~ yourself.
Based on my experiences I would guess hardly any, because it’s intense and hard as s~~~.
In my experience the most difficult classes were all in the field of how well you could pretend to agree with the professor, not any of the STEM classes. F~~~ing hated those classes, but they were all undergrad requirements. Probably because otherwise nobody would have taken them. And yes, they were all liberal arts.
Just had to grit my teeth, keep my head down, get the grade, and get the f~~~ out of them never to look back.
This conversation shouldn’t really be STEM vs Liberal Arts it should be Liberal Arts vs Skipping college altogether.
It really should be about employable degrees versus unemployable ones, which doesn’t really split on the arts versus sciences divide. Like I said above, law is a liberal art, but it can be very useful and employable.
That leads to a second debate of unemployable degrees versus learning a trade or skipping higher education entirely. To my thinking it’s not really a debate. You are much better off learning to be a plumber or electrician than a bronze age underwater basket weaver.
Anonymous3This conversation shouldn’t really be STEM vs Liberal Arts it should be Liberal Arts vs Skipping college altogether.
It really should be about employable degrees versus unemployable ones, which doesn’t really split on the arts versus sciences divide. Like I said above, law is a liberal art, but it can be very useful and employable.
That leads to a second debate of unemployable degrees versus learning a trade or skipping higher education entirely. To my thinking it’s not really a debate. You are much better off learning to be a plumber or electrician than a bronze age underwater basket weaver.
Yeah. That’s why I suggested finance, accounting, business and law. All are good. You are going to be fine in those fields. I also strongly suggest a top tier degree, you will always benefit with the right degree from a better institution. An engineering degree out of Stanford carries more cachet than one from a low ranked state university. If you have the choice, and everyone has the choice at all of these schools, always take the better ranked school. MIT is also very good for STEM despite being a bit lower ranked overall compared to Harvard and Yale.
Trades are great too. Military is an excellent choice, and will get you experience and also allow you to pursue education.
And ultimately, as I have stated before, I have a STEM degree but I am self taught for philosophy. Of all the things I have studied, I most value philosophy. There is a reason why great men throughout time have studied it. Only a fool refuses to study wisdom when he has the access to it. As you state sidecar, once you have things taken care of monetarily, there is nothing wrong with “life enhancing study”.
One addition I should add, learning multiple languages is a tremendous asset, almost a requirement these days.
It probably works out cheaper to pay a tutor to learn a language, better too as you get 1 to 1 teaching.
It occurs to me that one can make alot of money off a women’s studies degree, it’s just that few are as unscrupulous as Anita Sarkeesian to try it.
Here’s what you do.
-Get the womens studies degree.
-Find an area of male interest. One guys hold with a -passion. Tabletop gaming could be one. Comics another. -Gaming’s already covered, but you could go for action -movies of the eighties or something with a strong cult -following. Argue for mother/son fishing trips instead of father/son. etc.
-Make an intro video calling it sexist, ask for HUGE donations.
– Call it sexist in every way you know how. Invent new ways of calling it sexist. Use words like “Male entitlement. Male aggression. Male violence, violence against women, War on women, the more inflammatory and alarmist the better. Use the word abuse alot.
– Cry for the camera while saying it.
– Block all comments.
– Fake suicide threats.
– record all insults and “misogyny”.
– Call what you do, “educational resource”.
– Make TED talks.
– Get paid for news articles and interviews.
-Take the victim angle to the nth degree. Start “cutting” yourself. Meaning light scratches along your arm. To show how the abuse is getting to you.
– Keep making videos to show how strong you are in the face of all the trolling and suicide threats.
– Keep poking at men with your content.
– Get offered positions at the UN or speak in front of the UN.
– Laugh all the way to the bank.This works best if you’re doe eyed and adorable to behold.
See? People can make money off women’s studies 😀 Just gotta out drama queen everybody else.
To really make it, have a man hit you in the face one time. To give you a black eye. Then you’re set for life.
Phoenix writes: always take the better ranked school.
You have a choice, assuming your test scores guarantee admission. But, the higher ranked schools, especially private or out-of-state, are often prohibitively expensive. I think ranking is useful, but it has come down to building shiny new buildings and dorms which just further raises costs. I visited my alma mater for the first time in years today, and observed just this. Rather than so many new buildings, I would have preferred affordable online courses and textbooks.
I lived at home & incurred no debt when I earned my degree. I think it’s hard to make blanket statements about school rankings. I think if I had a degree from MIT instead of an in-state highly ranked public University, it would have made it easier to get a first job. But, even 5 years into an engineering career, it is of very little importance. I’m not seeing huge payback for elite universities. In my case, the tuition difference including housing, would have amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, enough to pay for a master’s degree at the public university.
I am not terribly impressed with higher education, even In STEM. There is not enough focus on applied aspects. Tuitions are too high. And the degree is used as a credential, prohibiting anyone from working in the field UNLESS they have the magic sheepskin–they cannot learn on the job. There are not enough resources spent by companies training technicians and on vocational training generally in America, and too many resources spent on universities and college prep, in my opinion. Much of this has to do with the professions wanting to monopolize the practice. Much of it is also due to a lack of free market forces that would exist in a privatized educational system.
I would also say the universities typically produce automatons rather than entrepreneurs. Most STEM graduates are glorified technicians. Too much research is government funded.
Yeah. That’s why I suggested finance, accounting, business and law. All are good. You are going to be fine in those fields. I also strongly suggest a top tier degree, you will always benefit with the right degree from a better institution.
Guess you didn’t check those links out I posted earlier. The average grad from SUNY Maritime makes more than the average Yale grad, and its neither an ivy league school or a private school, and it cost a fraction of what Yale costs. What you are saying is simply not true…in fact, its flat out wrong. If you also noticed in one of the links I posted, Yale cost 243k for a four year degree. I can assure you, my time spent at community college and state schools cost less than 1/5th of that.
So let’s compare two people who have to pay their way through college who didn’t get scholarships, have rich parents, or qualify for government handouts…one goes to Yale, and ends up with 243k in student loans. Let’s just say he pays it back @ 6% over 20 years…he ends up paying back roughly 420k @ 1750 a month before he breaks even.
The other goes the cheap route and ends up with 50k in loans and pays it back over 2 years, then banks 1000 a month(because he makes less and can’t save 1750 a month) for 18 years and averages an 8% return. At that 20 year post graduation mark when the Yale guy is done paying his loans, the cheap guy has a half million saved up lol. 8% a year on 500k is 40k…unless the Yale guy is making 41k+ a year more Yale won’t ever pay off, and if he was making that 41k+ a year more he’d probably still be retired or dead of old age before the more expensive school became worth it. If the non-Yale guy makes the same and banks 1750 a month instead of only 1000, he’d end up with 850k after 20 years, further widening the gap, and making it so the more expensive Yale degree was actually a complete waste of money.
An engineering degree out of Stanford carries more cachet than one from a low ranked state university.
To stanford grads, maybe, but not to anyone else. Especially not to anyone who’s made the mistake of employing one of them. Grade inflation is an ongoing problem with many schools, but it’s pretty much synonymous with stanford.
You have a choice, assuming your test scores guarantee admission. But, the higher ranked schools, especially private or out-of-state, are often prohibitively expensive.
I agree sir. I remember back in high school a buddy of mine got accepted to Harvard. He framed the acceptance letter and hung it on his wall at home, and said hell no I’m not going to Harvard, it cost way too much money…he just applied to he could brag about getting accepted to Harvard and ended up at a state college where most of the rest of us ended up lol.
There are not enough resources spent by companies training technicians and on vocational training generally in America, and too many resources spent on universities and college prep, in my opinion.
I completely understand why it is like this though. I had to have an engineering degree to get my job…but the first thing my company did was send me off to 6 months of classroom training. I breezed through it no problem…I literally could have passed it fresh out of high school. The issue is though, our high school system is a joke. I skated through all the high classes with Bs and Cs mostly without even trying and doing almost no homework or studying. If this company just looked at my high school grades they’d probably think I was an idiot, where as the kid in all the dummy classes who got As would look like a prime candidate.
When you put me and that other kid into college though…he might not be able to get through an engineering program, if he did he’d certainly struggle a lot more, and even after graduating he might not be able to pass the standardized testing required for me job, where as I actually gave a s~~~ at that point so I got mostly A’s with a few B’s here and there in my math, science, and engineering courses and passed the standardized tests with no problem. If my company just said f~~~ it…we’ll just start hiring high school grads…they would end up having to deal with a much higher rate of people who do not respond well to training. They hired me in with 9 others and 1 didn’t get through the training process, and even then it was more just that the person was a lazy piece of s~~~ than too stupid to do the job.
If they just pulled a bunch of high school grads on average they’d require a much longer training period and have a higher failure rate. My company saw this first hand about 10 years ago when they merged another department into my department and promised not to fire anyone during the process…a lot of the guys transferred out to other departments as soon as they could because they weren’t doing well or just didn’t like the different type of work, or left the company for another job, and of the ones that stuck it out most of them took 3-4 years to get through the training process which typically takes 18 months, and not a single one of them ever got promoted beyond the entry level position in the department, which most people tend to get promoted about 4-8 years in depending on the timing of when the company offers to run training courses required to get to the next tier.
Basically why does my company want to spend more resources training people when there are so many people with degrees applying its easier for them to just use the degrees as a screening tool knowing they will tend to get more intelligent people this way. This doesn’t p~~~ me off nearly as much as how college in this country has turned into a giant money making behemoth. I know when I was in college they required me to take a gym class. I found out if you were over 25 you were exempt. What did I do? I took an extra course related to my major and after I turned 25 went and told my counselor I’d like to substitute that for gym. I mean seriously…what the f~~~ was the point of me paying 1400 dollars to play badminton or take a cross country class 3 hours a week for a semester? If you aren’t going to be physically active due to your own motivation by the time you are in college…some random stupid ass gym class wasn’t going to make any difference in your life. But hey, like you say, last time I was in the area I drove through campus and they had quite the fancy new dorm building built. Looks like all those 1400 dollar bowling, yoga, and aerobics classes were useful after all!
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